


let me out, let me ache

by worry



Category: Doctor Who (1963)
Genre: Also quite heavily peppered with literary references.. my perfect fic, Anatomy, Character Study, Gen, Introspection, Non-Linear Narrative
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-22
Updated: 2018-05-22
Packaged: 2019-05-08 00:47:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,021
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14682984
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/worry/pseuds/worry
Summary: The whole entire universe lives inside of Turlough’s right eye. It can be burdensome.(A look into the anatomy of Vislor Turlough, region by region.)





	let me out, let me ache

The body of Vislor Turlough is held together broken, hanging off the edges of regularity. It is held together by the fragile stems of roses, by the virulent, deceiving softness of feathers. He has no body---his soul floats through the rooms, his perceived lack of morality as the true anatomical skin. His bones are wire-wrapped, perfectly gifted; he will never quite reach the status of individualism.

 

CRANIAL; _the skull;_

 

“The entire history of human desire takes about seventy minutes to tell.

         Unfortunately, we don’t have that kind of time.” -- Richard Siken

 

A thunderstorm. A small boat, sailing its way through the furies of the sky. Watch it fold in on itself, an unending spiral of a click; anguish _click_ trauma _click_ the throes of sea _click_ an unworldly concept of purity, nested in the systems of his mind. Purity can never be switched on - his soul a binary machine, _he looks after himself, he is tormented._ There is no space for purity in the space surrounding Turlough; a sick, sick exile.

 

Turlough does not _want_ purity. He is too occupied with self-preservation - by any means necessary - to ever have such a dream. _He must think of himself - no one else will._

 

Truthfully there is not much to say about Turlough’s mind; it is one-dimensional, solely torturous. There is no way out, no secret rooms hidden behind bookshelves, no beautiful earth-tale princes that will free him from the tower of his thoughts. He would not understand life without its wounds, he thinks; they are healthy, they keep your mind sharp. Relaxation is simply - too risky.

Turlough can’t understand what it does to him -- trauma is a human feeling, trauma is just so _human,_ but simultaneously boundless. The experience, that is, of the cruelty that belongs to a young human boy. Turlough is older - stronger - better - and so should be able to rise above this, to live unaffected. _There is a pain --- so utter ---_

 

_Bone by bone._

 

 _A dream within a dream. The golden sands of time_  - this is the Doctor, at the center of it all. Inside of Turlough’s consciousness lies the Doctor, and the Doctor is trapped between the vertebrae of an hourglass; over and over it turns, melting through. In some buried world Turlough deserves him.

 

ORBITAL; _of the eyes;_

 

What Turlough sees is not what Nyssa sees, not what Tegan sees, most certainly not what the Doctor sees. _Eye for an eye,_ he thinks, and inside of him the mental image of the Guardian turns quick, his own eyes shining entirely black, entirely dark.

 

He believes to the _bone_ that he can see the truth. The universe is brutal, the other side of the blade - _Turlough wilting like a dried orchid -_ and the universe is covered in a thick sheet of ice, of metal, of an unbreakable roughness that Turlough cannot ever wash from his hands. He sees the truth, he does; he sees the Doctor at the Doctor’s core, he sees them all at the bareness of their essence. The Guardian lives inside of his eye, the universe lives inside of his eye. There are so many stories to tell that involve eyes and none of them involve living, none of them involve

 

taking deep breaths and burying a finger in the meat of virtue’s heart. Get benevolence underneath your fingernails -- that part comes later. _See: thoracic._

 

The whole entire universe lives inside of Turlough’s right eye. It can be burdensome. In his left eye: everything that could be, all possibilities melting into a single fluid future. Sometimes in these realities he is unafflicted by the Guardian’s presence - other times he is dead - and, although a rarity, sometimes he has enough freedom to take a deep breath and

 

reach up at the stars for purity.

 

None of these realities make it into the truth.

 

 _VERTEBRAL;_ spinal.

 

What is he fighting for? What is he _truly_ fighting for? Turlough is fighting for himself. _Nobody else will._ Nobody else will orbit around him, he must fight for himself, thicken his own skin, because he is alone here - the Doctor looks at him and Turlough thinks: _orbital, of the eyes, deceiving, windows to souls and the Doctor’s soul is golden,_ oh.

 

The axial is the core of the body; from the spine everything flows. The difference, however, being the extension of Turlough’s body - Turlough’s limbs, his all, every fragile bone - and the lack of quality within it. So this reimposes the question: what is he fighting for?

 

You could say quality, if you wanted to represent him as something that is capable of attaining it. A being, with its gold hidden. You could also say redemption, but again: its existence is hinged.

 

The truth, of course, is that Turlough is fighting for nothing. He searches for some purpose - finds only void. He’s just fighting.

 

 _THORACIC;_ of the chest; contains the heart; lungs.

 

Here is where it all ends: Turlough’s heart. _Crossed out._

 

Ripped out. There is a big, dark _X_ painted invisibly over his thoracic cavity - this is the spot where it all goes down, the big battle with the shiny new weapons, the casting-out of those no longer holy, the dissection of the body, the spreading disease. His body is an ocean and it moves like an ocean - unpredictable, raging and furious and timid and serene. Beneath his skin - unspeakable horrors. He can pass anatomically as human but has ascended humanity.

 

His heart pumps ichor through his body. The action potential: his movement is unstoppable and constant, his mucles contract and move and he cannot stop himself from wanting - feeling - needing - wanting - circling around living like a predatory bird, flying through survival. He wants to grasp life in his talons - _really_ feel it, with the Doctor and the universe’s cold existence constantly gnawing at his skin. Turlough wants the luxury of the ability to just _be._ To exist in harmony with his constantly changing surroundings, an evolved homeostasis - and survival is one body of water, living is the next. He picks up a stone, flings it into the water of _living._

 

It is never going to be be enough.

**Author's Note:**

> "Let me out, let me ache
> 
> This is a retirement  
> from plumbing the veins of rats and kings;  
> let the stars be my eyes then  
> unchain the knuckles and latches-  
> unbutton my wrists.
> 
> My skin so thin you can see black holes within;  
> my eyes so clear they light up the sky...  
> and sometimes I'll bend into the silicone veil  
> and enter this world again as a ghost." - The Silicon Veil, Susanne Sundfor
> 
> Pls comment + kudos if you enjoyed. :)
> 
> [Referenced works: the Enlightenment novelization, Richard Siken's "Litany in which Certain Things are Crossed Out", Emily Dickinson's "There is a pain -- so utter---", Edgar Allan Poe's "A Dream Within a Dream", Anne Sexton's "The Double Image".)


End file.
